🚀 go-pugleaf

"john (j.d.) hickin" <hickin@bnr.ca> writes:
>And this, the expectation that constructors of the form X(X&) and X(const X&)
>must perform a *copy* operation, is, IMHO, the trouble.

No, the notion that these constructors perform copy operations (and only
copy operations) is deeply wired in to the language, in at least three
places: argument passing, return value passing, and optimizing away of
copy constructors all assume these constructors mean "copy".

>The original term was reference constructor, a name which, in my opinion,
>carefully stepped around all subtleties of language.

I have never seen this term used.  Stroustrup said "copy constructor"
at a very early stage.

Anyone who writes a class in which X(X&) or X(const X&) does not have the
semantics of a copy operation is doing something wrong (e.g. auto_ptr in
the draft standard is broken).

-- 
-- Joe Buck 	<jbuck@synopsys.com>	(not speaking for Synopsys, Inc)

Work for something because it is good,
not just because it stands a chance to succeed.	   -- Vaclav Havel
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